John Frost

John Dutton "Johnny" Frost (31 December 1912-21 May 1993) was a Major-General in the British Army who notably led a small detachment of British paratroopers in the defense of the captured town of Arnhem in the Netherlands during Operation Market Garden in World War II.

Biography
John Dutton Frost was born in Pune, British Raj (now in India) on 31 December 1912, the son of a British Army officer. He graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1932 and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) regiment. From 1938 to 1941, he served in the Iraqi levies as a captain, and he joined the Parachute Regiment in 1941. He took part in a daring raid in Bruneval, France in February 1942, capturing components of the Germans' Wurzburg radar as well as a German expert on the radar in an operation that earned him the Military Cross. He was also awarded a Distinguished Service Order for his bravery during Operation Torch, during which his unit lost 16 officers and 250 men while fighting their way back to Allied lines after a force sent to meet up with them at Oudna, Tunisia never arrived. In 1943, he assisted in the capture of the Primosole Bridge in Sicily during Operation Husky.

Arnhem
In 1944, Frost distinguished himself during Operation Market Garden, during which he spearheaded the British 1st Airborne Division's assault on the bridge at Arnhem as the rest of the division, led by Roy Urquhart, lagged behind. He was supposed to hold Arnhem for two days before the British XXX Corps arrived to reinforce him, but traffic congestion delayed XXX Corps, while Urquhart's forces were dropped 12 kilometers away from the town. To make matters worse, all of the radios were down, making it impossible for Frost to report to HQ.

Frost and his men were therefore left to take and hold Arnhem by themselves. They captured the northern end of Arnhem and occupied parts of the town, but they were subjected to several attacks from Wilhelm Bittrich's II SS Panzer Corps. The British troops began to run low on food, ammunition, and other supplies as the Germans continued to attack them, and very little mercy was given to the British or the civilians of Arnhem as the Germans flattened the city with artillery fire. The city was effectively razed, and Frost himself was wounded in the leg by shrapnel. Frost and his exhausted men lay in front of a destroyed house as German troops entered the town, and Frost was forced to surrender to Bittrich, who offered him some very good chocolate that the British had accidentally dropped in the German area; the British had ignored signals from the ground on Bernard Montgomery's orders, leading to the British troops gaining no supplies as the Germans gained free food and ammunition. Frost was held as a POW at Spangenburg and at a hospital in Obermassfeldt, and the US Army liberated the area in March 1945. He was awarded a bar to his DSO on 20 September 1945 for his leadership at Arnhem.

Frost remained in the army after the war, being promoted to Major-General in 1961. He retired from the army in 1968, and he died in West Sussex in 1993 at the age of 80.